Corvallis Fall Festival 10K
If you ever want to set a personal record for a running race, here's a formula for success ... put in some miles of training ... and then get a friend who's a long & fast runner who's willing to run the race at your goal pace (ie. at a slooow training pace for him) ... voila!
BIG thanks to Marv Newcombe for being that friend for me today!
I needed a boost ... the training runs have felt like they've been sap'ing me ... and I have not felt like I've been making progress ... after today, I can see again that I am making progress!
The bottom line for today was 10K in 56:50 ... here's the Garmin data with Google Map ...
http://trail.motionbased.com/trail/activity/6873902
I went in with a goal of 9:20/mile ... which is what the McMillan calculator ( http://www.mcmillanrunning.com/cgi-bin/calculations.pl) says is the equivalent of a 9:00/mile pace for 5K ... a pace I could not keep in my previous 5K on July 12th ... so I felt that a 9:20 goal was aggressive ...
When we started out with an 8:55 first mile, and my HR was at 168 just about 3/4ths of a mile into the race, I was a bit worried that I'd made the classic mistake of starting out too fast ... but, to some extent, it felt like I couldn't go any slower ... the only evidence to the contrary being the HR ... and so I/we backed off on the pace ... and the HR did drop back down to the low 160s. The 3rd mile was a slight incline ... and the HR got up to 170ish at the peak ... but came down quickly when we turned around and went back down the incline. I felt good that I was able to do that 3rd mile at my target pace (9:19). There was a water station at about 3.25 miles ... and I decided to walk thru that and drink a bit of water ... the weather was a bit warmer than usual (race didn't start until 9:15, and it was a clear blue sky) ... but with the decline, I was still able to finish that 4th mile right at pace (9:20). The decline continued thru the 5th mile and that resulted in 9:08 ... cool! That's when I became 100% confident that I'd be under an hour ... I could tell that I wasn't going to collapse ... in fact, I could tell that I was going to be able to pick up the pace for the final mile.
My secondary goal for the race was do the 6th mile in under 9 minutes ... but that was based on an assumption that it was mostly downhill ... oops ... turned out the 5-mile mark was pretty much at the bottom of the course ... and much of that 6th mile was incline ... but with Marv's encouragement, I was able to pick up the pace and keep it up so that when we did get to the final decline stretch, that 6th mile came in at 8:58 ... which was pretty energizing for me ...
So much so that I opt'd to go for my third goal for the race ... which was to sprint to the finish and leave Marv in my dust :-) At what I thought was about 2 blocks to go, I kicked the sprint into gear ... and indeed I did leave Marv behind ... but it turned out I was 3-4 blocks out when I started ... and I totally ran out of gas ... with my HR at 183, I just didn't have anything left to finish that last ~100m ... and Marv reeled me in! If I were him, I woulda blown by and shown the soles of my shoes ... but that's not Marv's style at all ... he got up to me and just kept the encouragement coming ... and got me to the finish line under the 57 minute mark ... man, was I hurtin' ... whatever my VO2Max is, I was *there* at that moment! It sure felt like I was at my max heart rate ... I could not get my mouth open wide enough to get more air inside me ...
It's fun to kick to the finish ... I just need to make sure I've got the finish line in sight before doing it :-)
So ... 5 weeks until the Half-Marathon @ San Francisco ... now I think I can keep up my training ... now I think I can reach my goal of doing it at less than a 10-min/mile pace ... McMillan calc says 9:40 min/mile based on what I did for 10K today ... I don't know about that ... especially given the hills and potential wind on the GG bridge ... but I think a 10-min/mile pace is a good goal to shoot for ... I'm looking forward to it ... both for the milestone it will represent and because 2 of my support team, will be running it with me! See you there, Gary! See you there, Dur! Let's go get 'em!!!
I'm thinking I've got one more goal for 2008 ... and it will bring this running journey full circle ... my first 5K was the "Run Wild" 5K at Golden Gate Park (SF) on the Sunday after Thanksgiving last year ... I was not able to run the full 5K at that time ... in fact, I had to stop and walk 2 times ... finished in over 33 minutes ... well over my goal of 10mins/mile ... well, this year, I'll go back ... and my goal will be sub-9mins/mile! And I think I'll be able to recover from the HM and get into shape for doing just that! http://www.rhodyco.com/runwild.html ... and this year, I won't plan to drive home (ie. to Corvallis) that same day ... now *that* was nutso! :-)
Onward!
ps.
Here's a picture of me and Marv from back in May after he ran the Eugene Half-Marathon and I did it's 5K ... http://picasaweb.google.com/LynchMob98/EugeneMarathon#5196759072363118914 ... he's doing the Portland Marathon next Sunday ... GO MARV!
BIG thanks to Marv Newcombe for being that friend for me today!
I needed a boost ... the training runs have felt like they've been sap'ing me ... and I have not felt like I've been making progress ... after today, I can see again that I am making progress!
The bottom line for today was 10K in 56:50 ... here's the Garmin data with Google Map ...
http://trail.motionbased.com/trail/activity/6873902
I went in with a goal of 9:20/mile ... which is what the McMillan calculator ( http://www.mcmillanrunning.com/cgi-bin/calculations.pl) says is the equivalent of a 9:00/mile pace for 5K ... a pace I could not keep in my previous 5K on July 12th ... so I felt that a 9:20 goal was aggressive ...
When we started out with an 8:55 first mile, and my HR was at 168 just about 3/4ths of a mile into the race, I was a bit worried that I'd made the classic mistake of starting out too fast ... but, to some extent, it felt like I couldn't go any slower ... the only evidence to the contrary being the HR ... and so I/we backed off on the pace ... and the HR did drop back down to the low 160s. The 3rd mile was a slight incline ... and the HR got up to 170ish at the peak ... but came down quickly when we turned around and went back down the incline. I felt good that I was able to do that 3rd mile at my target pace (9:19). There was a water station at about 3.25 miles ... and I decided to walk thru that and drink a bit of water ... the weather was a bit warmer than usual (race didn't start until 9:15, and it was a clear blue sky) ... but with the decline, I was still able to finish that 4th mile right at pace (9:20). The decline continued thru the 5th mile and that resulted in 9:08 ... cool! That's when I became 100% confident that I'd be under an hour ... I could tell that I wasn't going to collapse ... in fact, I could tell that I was going to be able to pick up the pace for the final mile.
My secondary goal for the race was do the 6th mile in under 9 minutes ... but that was based on an assumption that it was mostly downhill ... oops ... turned out the 5-mile mark was pretty much at the bottom of the course ... and much of that 6th mile was incline ... but with Marv's encouragement, I was able to pick up the pace and keep it up so that when we did get to the final decline stretch, that 6th mile came in at 8:58 ... which was pretty energizing for me ...
So much so that I opt'd to go for my third goal for the race ... which was to sprint to the finish and leave Marv in my dust :-) At what I thought was about 2 blocks to go, I kicked the sprint into gear ... and indeed I did leave Marv behind ... but it turned out I was 3-4 blocks out when I started ... and I totally ran out of gas ... with my HR at 183, I just didn't have anything left to finish that last ~100m ... and Marv reeled me in! If I were him, I woulda blown by and shown the soles of my shoes ... but that's not Marv's style at all ... he got up to me and just kept the encouragement coming ... and got me to the finish line under the 57 minute mark ... man, was I hurtin' ... whatever my VO2Max is, I was *there* at that moment! It sure felt like I was at my max heart rate ... I could not get my mouth open wide enough to get more air inside me ...
It's fun to kick to the finish ... I just need to make sure I've got the finish line in sight before doing it :-)
So ... 5 weeks until the Half-Marathon @ San Francisco ... now I think I can keep up my training ... now I think I can reach my goal of doing it at less than a 10-min/mile pace ... McMillan calc says 9:40 min/mile based on what I did for 10K today ... I don't know about that ... especially given the hills and potential wind on the GG bridge ... but I think a 10-min/mile pace is a good goal to shoot for ... I'm looking forward to it ... both for the milestone it will represent and because 2 of my support team, will be running it with me! See you there, Gary! See you there, Dur! Let's go get 'em!!!
I'm thinking I've got one more goal for 2008 ... and it will bring this running journey full circle ... my first 5K was the "Run Wild" 5K at Golden Gate Park (SF) on the Sunday after Thanksgiving last year ... I was not able to run the full 5K at that time ... in fact, I had to stop and walk 2 times ... finished in over 33 minutes ... well over my goal of 10mins/mile ... well, this year, I'll go back ... and my goal will be sub-9mins/mile! And I think I'll be able to recover from the HM and get into shape for doing just that! http://www.rhodyco.com/runwild.html ... and this year, I won't plan to drive home (ie. to Corvallis) that same day ... now *that* was nutso! :-)
Onward!
ps.
Here's a picture of me and Marv from back in May after he ran the Eugene Half-Marathon and I did it's 5K ... http://picasaweb.google.com/LynchMob98/EugeneMarathon#5196759072363118914 ... he's doing the Portland Marathon next Sunday ... GO MARV!
posted by Howard Lynch at 12:52 PM
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